More hacking exploits by Lisbeth Salander, gay aversion slammed in Boy Erased and a hypnotic mystery from Korea

I’m going traveling this coming week so my next two New Movies features will be incomplete. Today’s is too, but for an entirely different reason. The previews for three films were held at exactly the same time. The studios’ loss. Well, two of them.

Here’s what I do have.

The Girl in the Spider’s Web: 2 ½ stars

Boy Erased: 3 ½

Burning: 4

Madeline’s Madeline: 3

The Grinch: --

Overlord: --

THE GIRL IN THE SPIDER’S WEB: I’m told that there’s been a great deal added to this story in its transition from book to screen. Maybe that’s why I couldn’t really believe in it. The is the fourth novel in the Millenium series, better known for its punky, computer-hacking heroine, Lisbeth Salander, and the first written by another author after Stieg Larsson died. Initially it’s fully involving. There’s some extra backstory shown about Lisbeth, including that she has a sister and escaped an abusive father. And there’s a bit of what you expect, more avenging-angel action against abusive men. But then she gets into stuff that just doesn’t fit her. Just like so many action heroes in other movies, she’s asked to save the world from nuclear destruction. Her unique persona is turned askew for sake of a screenplay.

Claire Foy, more used to playing a queen, is fine as the moody vigilante. It’s the situation that’s not credible. An American programmer with the National Security Agency wants her to steals the data base he’s been working on because it’s too dangerous. Bad guys could gain “god-like powers” with it. No problem; she gets it just like that, the first of several examples of her hacking skills that defy credibility. But she needs a code to de-crypt it and before you know it, the program is stolen from her. The ensuing quest to find it again is so convoluted, only a writer could make it up. Her sister, family history, an autistic boy (more central in the novel, I’m told) all figure in it. A woman lover has only a perfunctory presence and the close relationship she had in previous films with Mikael Blomkvist of the Millenium Magazine is flat this time. In fact, the whole film is chilly; watchable but disappointing. (Scotiabank, Marine Gateway and suburban theatres) 2 ½ out of 5

BOY ERASED: It’s not quite three months since the last film (The Miseducation of Cameron Post) that exposed the disgrace of gay aversion therapy so it’s not surprising that you may feel you’ve been told all this before. Like in that film you get a look inside a program propelled by ideology and ignorance to convince gays that they’re not born that way, that they’ve made it a choice and they can correct themselves back out of it. Also like that film, this one is somewhat restrained in what it shows. Gay life is underrepresented and the de-programmers are shown as merely misguided though possibly well-meaning. The link to religion is more pronounced in this one. The program is church-based; the main character (Lucas Hedges) is sent there by his preacher-father (Russell Crowe) with the approval of his mother (Nicole Kidman).

One of the first lessons he gets is “What is a real man? He’s a man of God.” It’s not long before it feels more like confinement than teaching. No phones, outside contact, diaries or even solo trips to the washroom are allowed. Violations of the rules are punished with humiliation and worse. A key assignment is to list the moral faults of your relatives because they’re said to have contributed to the homosexuality. Joel Edgerton, as the program leader and the film’s director, explains all this with fervor. It’s based on a true-life memoir by Garrard Conley and Hedges, as his stand-in for the movie, is slow to realize what’s amiss. He’s compliant with his dad’s plan just like his mom. The tension is in waiting for the time when somebody objects, and how. It’s slow getting there but the details of the instruction and the fine acting by all, including small roles for Flea and Xavier Dolan, will keep you, not quite angry, but concerned. 3 ½ out of 5

BURNING: Don’t think of this film as slow, although it does move along at a leisurely pace. Think of it as engrossing, mesmerizing and mysterious. And note the contemporary issues it has bubbling away behind the story line up front. This is a very rich experience that starts with a 1992 short story by Japanese writer Haruki Murakami that was re-set in and adapted to South Korea by master director Lee Chang-Dong. He won a critics’ prize at Cannes for it.

Young people can’t find jobs but there are many Gatsby’s about, who our hero, Jong-Su, describes as “mysterious people who are rich but you don’t know what they really do.” Ben seems to be one. He drives a Porsche, lives in that happening part of Seoul called Gangnam and exudes confidence. He’s also become close with a young woman our hero is smitten with after some quick sex, whose cat he watched while she was away and who claims she knew him years ago. She’s pondering her place in the universe and then disappears. “Like a puff of smoke,” says Ben who doesn’t judge because he believes there’s no right or wrong in the “morals of nature” and then admits to a strange hobby, burning down greenhouses. Jong-Su spends the rest of the film searching for explanations for all these matters even as family issues—his estrangement from both parents—mean he’s like an orphan, alone in this world. (Van City Theatre) 4 out of 5

MADELINE’S MADELINE: Mother-daughter conflicts, the stresses of growing up, controlling power figures, mental health and the power of art all swirl about in this intriguing and very much out-of-the-ordinary film. It starts out strange, comes into focus and then turns surreal. It’s quite a feat for third-time director Josephine Decker and features a terrific, very natural performance by another newcomer, Helena Howard, as a teen who is buffeted between two powerful women.

She’s 16, has spent some unspecified time in a psych ward (which her mother played by Miranda July is prone to recall now and then) and has a dream about attacking mother with an iron. As a form of therapy she participates in an improv theatre project where the director (Molly Parker) leads exercises like “birth yourself right out of the cacoon.” She’s so impressed by the teen that she urges her to act out incidents from her own life, including that violent dream about her mother. “This is immersive theatre,” she says and the play becomes more and more about her. The others aren’t happy about that and mom isn’t supportive. She calls her a hypochondriac. The line blurs between theatre and real life and the film becomes a strong, dreamy impression of a young woman’s chaotic inner life. It’s a bit too arty but well worth experiencing. (VanCity) 3 out of 5

Also now playing ….

DR. SEUSS’ THE GRINCH: Yes here it is for a third time. Benedict Cumberbatch voices the famous grump who wants to spoil Christmas in Whoville but for the influence of a young girl with a good heart. Boris Karloff starred in the original on TV, and Jim Carrey 18 years ago in the movie that was drubbed by critics but to this day remains the second highest-grossing holiday film of all time. Home Alone and its sequel are first and third. This new version is from the group that brought you Despicable Me, Minions and other fun hits. Sounds to me like there’s a built-in audience out there. (International Village, Marine Gateway and many suburban theatres)

OVERLORD: Really? Nazi zombies again? They’ve been in movies and games for years. The high point was Dead Snow which came from Norway nine years ago and just two months ago there was a Canadian variation, Trench 11, which shifted the concept back earlier to World War I. It seems that its basic plot is pretty well repeated in this new one. Paratroopers drop into France to prepare for the Normandy Invasion and find experiments have been going on in tunnels under a church to revive the dead. They come at you in what Screen International calls “a big, loud, violent, gleefully gory sledgehammer of a film” but another site calls “uninspired” and “aggressively boring.” It’s got high marks on Rotten Tomatoes, though. (Scotiabank and suburban theatres)